FDISK ask’s, above;
I think this is a good question, one I’ve wondered about myself. After all, you’re not buying the CD itself, but the content. So how is accepting a used CD (or a textbook) any different than copying?
Can Velma give me one of David B’s articles when she’s through reading it and keep a clear conscience?
Peace,
mangeorge
What does that have to do with it? If you invent a tune, you “own” it just as surely as you own an article or a piece of software you wrote. As a freeware author, I don’t make money from my software, but I still hold the copyright.
And I can come up with several reasons you might make money from whistling a tune. Maybe you were planning to sell the tune to a songwriter, and you were just working it over in your head on the way to catch a bus. Maybe you’re such a talented whistler that people pay to hear you. The guy who passes you on the sidewalk and “steals” your tune has no idea of what you plan to do with it.
Far-fetched examples to be sure, but no more far-fetched than the idea that theft can occur while nothing has been taken away from its rightful owner. You’re putting too much emphasis on “taken”, and not nearly enough on “away”.
See, I just can’t agree with this idea that morality is something absolute. Perhaps this is because I don’t have a belief in a deity. What I do believe is that in every situation, we have the choice to act in a way that is in balance as “good” as possible.
The problem that I have with the notion that your actions were somehow enabling of a dysfunctional community and that you were rewarding bad behavior (on the part of the parents/school administration) is that, while this may be true, ultimately it is the kids that suffer.
To address the point that you make, I suggest that you look at this another way. Who knows what great works will now get done because your (admittedly illegal) copyright violation exposed a room full of kids to knowledge that the otherwise would never have experienced.
And I know, the notion of relative morality is a very slippery slope. The point that I guess that I would also like to see acknowledged is that absolute morality is also a seductive and slippery slope.
So some of you believe that there is never an adequate justification for theft, no matter what? Theft being taking or using something you have no right to.
Peace,
mangeorge
This is called a Slippery Slope. It is valid sometimes, but a fallacy most of the time.
So, by your kind of logic, companies selling distros of OSS should have all gone out of business by now. After all, what they sell can be freely and legally copied and used. So why would anybody still pay them?
It seems then people do see value in having an entire package with some nice custom installer is worth the money they pay for the distros.
You can consider whatever you want, the fact remains that Adobe doesn’t lose any money in the process.
In fact, Adobe may benefit from PhotoShop piracy–people who learn PhotoShop at home with pirated copies may go on to work as graphic designers, where their bosses buy (and upgrade) legitimate copies. The same can be said of packages like AutoCAD.
This is in fact the idea of giving educational institutions heavy discounts on software.
Not sure what OSS is? But folks like Red Hat Linux offer a product, they take a free distribution, package it on CDs which is a boon for those of us without broadband, and provide extras and help that I would find beneficial. I can’t copy a Linux distribution easily, I’d pay for the CDs.
I stand by the idea that some percentage of people who download illegal copies of PhotoShop would pay for it if they had no other alternative. If people had to give Adobe money in order to use it, some of the folks stealing it now would eventually do it. So yes, Adobe is losing money. The fact that it is easy to steal a copy masks the true market for the product. To say they’d never buy it is an untested assertion, IMO.
You can come up with all sorts of alternative marketing schemes for software and music, but the fact remains that the owners of the software/music have the the right to choose whatever means they see fit to market their product. They may have a different strategy, or think they can make more money by keeping their product exclusive, or use it as part of a larger marketing campaign that covers other products. Suppose they give heavy discounts to colleges, does that mean that high school students are allowed to download it for free?
You’ve done a fine job of rationalizing your stance, and there are many arguments I agree with. If I was a marketing person for Adobe I might think similarly to you. But I’m not, and I see no reason to impose my thoughts on their product. If you like it so much, you write a PhotoShop clone and market it any way you choose. Until then, I think this line of reasoning is blowing smoke. I respect your arguments, but don’t think they hold ethical weight.
I can if there’s no law preventing me from doing so, and I’m not hurting David B. I have also read magazines I don’t own, and sold used books at a garage sale. The whole concept of libraries and used book stores is based on the idea of sharing information without buying new, and without breaking copyright laws. I’m not reproducing the material, just passing it around.
I can pass around a CD to my friends so they can listen to it, but I can’t reproduce it.
I think I see where we differ, Velma. I don’t feel it’s immoral to break the law, just illegal.
If I buy a “Do Your Own Divorce” book, use it, then give it to a friend to use, he/she’s kinda stolen something. Or I have. The forms inside are readily available at the courthouse. But the author has lost a sale. Same for an instructional video, or CD, which one would normally use only once. Immoral? Probably, but not illegal.
How about photocopying crosswords from a newspaper? Digging out my tax forms (prepared by a CPA) from last year and just re-doing the math? I’m using his hard-won skill, but not paying for it.
Shades of Grey, huh. 
Peace,
mangeorge